Don't Forget Mississippi
It seems like the media has an infatuation with New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina was supposed to hit there but turn and made direct hit on Gulfport, Mississippi. Is the French quarter more important. I understand there is higher population in New Orleans, but the worst damage was not there.
I spent eight months of my life in Biloxi, Mississippi during my Air Force training. Its a great place with great people. They were obviously not as ready. The story of complete destruction is not as 'media-cool' as breaking levees. So remember when stories covering Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the country, begin to fade, they took the direct hit.
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp
New Bed
Yesterday we received our new bed. A b-day present for me. It is awesome. It is soft. It is firm. It is KING size! My poor wife has to take a running jump at it. I insisted on high thread count sheets. It is, according to the salesman, "like sleeping on a cloud".
Front Porch Stories
Have you eve experienced what I recall as a 'front porch story' with your parents. When I was a middle teeenager, I distinctly remember a few. This is probably one of the first times that I can remember seeing my parents as actual people instead of parents. We had been discussing my wanting a motorcycle. Dad began telling me the story of his first mototrcycle and exactly how far from the house he got before he crashed it, how many times he crashed that day and the bizarre ways in which he crashed it. We laughed our butts off. That was a great day. My folks did crazy stuff when they were young(er).
BTW, I believe that was the last day my Dad rode a motorcycle for a long time.
I did get a motorcycle the following christmas. My folks sold one of their two cars to buy it for me. I have great parents!
An Independent Hawaii?
This morning's NPR reported on the effort of a movement in Hawaii to return the Kingdom of Hawaii to an independent country. The story cited a 1993 apology declared by the US Congress the 100 year anniversary of the 'illegal overthrow of the Kingdome of Hawaii'. This is some crazy stuff. He is the meat of the apology.
UNITED STATES PUBLIC LAW 103-150
103d Congress Joint Resolution 19
Nov. 23, 1993
whereas...
SECTION 1. ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND APOLOGY.
The Congress -
(1) on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893, acknowledges the historical significance of this event which resulted in the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people;
(2) recognizes and commends efforts of reconciliation initiated by the State of Hawaii and the United Church of Christ with Native Hawaiians;
(3) apologizes to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893 with the participation of agents and citizens of the United States, and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination;
(4) expresses its commitment to acknowledge the ramifications of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in order to provide a proper foundation for reconciliation between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people; and
(5) urges the President of the United States to also acknowledge the ramifications of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and to support reconciliation efforts between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people.
So now there is a group (
http://www.hawaii-nation.org) that wants to return to Hawaiian independence. There is some interesting reading here.
What to do?I think the US should now apologize to us Native Americans and remove themselves from our land, currently referred to as the United States of America. I am sure that former Soviet republics would be willing to give back our 7.2 million if we agreed to give back Alaska. No harm no foul, right?
I think we all agree that invading others land is seen as a 'bad thing' nowadays. Then again we have come a long way toward civility. As a Native American myself, I can't imagine this land not being the USA. I think all would agree that it has changed significantly and generally for the better. "Change is inevitable, we don't have to like it but we do have to del with it" (Someone else's quote).
The wife and I watched the final Little House on the Prairie the other night. Its the one where someone bought up the town and forced everyone out. They blew up everything they had built. This allowed the new land owner to have the land, but not the town which they had worked so hard to build. Would we do the same in Hawaii? Would we obliterate the hotels, the infrastructure, the airport? They import 75% of what they use. Would we remove that? This would all be quite an impact. Think of the number of seamstresses alone that would be needed to remove that start from all of our flags. Maybe this could use some serious thought.
Of course most of what I say here is in jest. Some things just sound ridiculous. Besides, being from Texas, my own state has a similar group working towards Texas independence (
http://www.nationoftexas.com).
A Mother's Sorrow
I will say up front that nothing can be harsher than a mother's sorrow...
I can't believe what I have seen over the past few days concerning the mother, Cindy Sheehan, protesting the war outside Bush's Texas ranch. You might actually believe that Bush pulled the trigger by the end of today. Yesterday I heard about the story on NPR. They tend to offer a longer story (read fewer sound bites, more meat). By all account of this story the thing she was most upset about was that Bush wouldn't meet with her. The story mentioned that he did precisely that (June 2004) albeit along with other in the same situation of lost love ones in Iraq. He knows she is protesting. NPR reported that when asked a question on policy, Bush failed to answer that question directly but rather gave a short empathetic story directed in the broad direction of Cindy Sheehan. Let me tell you by the time I was driving home last night, the story had been "sound bit". From this version of the story it seems that Bush is truly insensitive at all to any death as a result of the Iraq War.
To continue, today on MSNBC (
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8909497/) there is an AP story whose second paragraph states that Ms. Sheehan's son entered the ARMY in 2000... "NEVER IMAGINING HE WOULD SEE COMBAT". You got to be kidding right? Anyone who has entered the military on the standard 3-4 year contract (which is actually eight) since 1991 has had an extremely high chance of seeing combat. My last stint started in 1990 and my group was on 48 hour notice when the last Iraq War ended.
The mother wants the troops pulled now; Bush believes that would destabilize what is currently so fragile now. They are on different sides of whether or not it would honor her son's memory to 'finish the job in Iraq'. If it were my son, I would hate for him to die to no end. I believe this soldier died performing his duty. In fact his mother wanted him to...
"I begged him not to go," she said through tears. "I said, 'I'll take you to Canada' ... but he said, 'Mom, I have to go. It's my duty. My buddies are going.'"
Again, I'll respect this mother's sorrow. I also respect all of the families that may see it differently. We don't need the media reporting snippets unless they tell the whole story.
(Anonymous comments are allowed... bring it!)
Loved Disney
I loved Disney. Some of the people there won't be missed, but we had a great time. I love my family and after a full week of non-stop family, I still do.
We were upgraded as 'family of the day' when we arrived, which basically meant nicer room for the week. We were upstairs from Chef Mickey's. This meant every morning we awoke(awakened?) to Mickey's celebration song. They actually start serving breakfast at 7:00 am... when people are on vacation. Pure craziness!
I promise not post any pictures until my wife does. As an inside peek there are over 400 of them. I also promise not to post 99% of them. I do love a digital camera though. THere was no film to mess with and the battries lasted most of the week.
